Ol' Man Death first enters the story where we find Maxim in need of a new hat, and quickly, because a Heterodyne has returned ✣ to Castle Heterodyne. Apparently, a Jager cannot simply buy a hat, but one must be taken as a trophy, plucked from the head of a worthy enemy ✣ . Unfortunately, Maxim has not run across a worthy enemy since he gave his hat ✣ to the late Lars as a sign of being an honorary Jager, and the only worthy enemy with a hat nearby happens to be Ol' Man Death, whom Maxim decides to challenge. By formal arrangement, Maxim will have three tries ✣ to pluck the hat from Ol' Man Death's head.
We never learn the man's real name, unless it actually is "Death".
His History[]
When he was a young man, before the days of Bill and Barry Heterodyne, Ol' Man Death rode with the Jagers and Heterodynes as they went battling. Riding with the Jagers was something a lot of the young men in the area did, especially if they enjoyed fighting and drinking, and didn't care much about what happened to them. As it turns out, he was actually quite good at fighting.
As of yet, we know very little about Ol' Man Death, but there are a few things worth noting:
- He is still well known among and respected by the Jagers
- While fighting with/among the Jagers, he never lost. Not once.
- He has a tattoo ✣ of the Jagermonster Insignia on his right arm.
- He is a formidable warrior. Not only is he referred to as the "Greatest Warrior Ever" by Maxim, but he also seems to deal with (most of) Maxim's aggressiveness with ease, an impressive feat considering both his age and how well skilled the Jagers are as fighters.
- He refers to "The old Cavalry"[1] as people he has known and is wearing a cavalry hat of a similar model as the one that Maxim gave to Lars. He also refers to Maxim as boss[2]. One guess that from this that Maxim was the leader of the cavalry group that he belonged to when he was fighting with the Jäger.
- He met his wife when ransacking a castle, only to be ransacked by its princess.
The Present Day[]
He comments that the princess took him away from his Jager lifestyle, leading eventually somehow to his current situation:
- He's a skilled sandwich maker with a reputation for being unstumpable in regards to filling orders. His status as the "cook" at a sandwich shop/catering service in a village near Mechanicsburg and the impressive array of knives he keeps strapped to his waist testify to his skill in the art of sandwich making. One can only assume that his history of carving up enemies gave him skill in carving up delectable sandwich meats and breads.
- He mentions at one point that personally he doesn't really care about his hat, and has thought more than once about just throwing it away, but since it means so much to the Jagers he keeps wearing it.
- Zeuxippe, the girl working in the sandwich shop, calls him "grandfather"; he refers to her as being present due to "mysterious processes" which might just be a joke, but with this comic you never know. She has a star mark — possibly a tattoo or birthmark — on her cheek, similar to ones seen before in a flashback to Klaus' reign in Mechanicsburg[3]. This could be a hereditary mark and the girl's mother is portrayed in the flashback. However, Countess Marie has a star mark as well (on her right breast)[4], so it could be a fashion statement instead. Whether or not they are actually biologically related, she shows herself to be a worthy heir, beaning Maxim with a improvised projectile when he momentarily has OMD on the ropes. (This elevates her to "course hazard" in official hat-plucking rules, which are evidently written down in a small booklet titled "Let's Fight".)
After being tossed out of the sandwich shop twice, Maxim "defeats" Ol' Man Death on this third and final try by ordering a "hat sandwich to go"; the man's pride in maintaining his unblemished sandwich-maker reputation proves to be greater than his desire to win this last fight. As Maxim departs in triumph, a cheerful OMD tells a worried Zeuxippe that (along with his own aforementioned attitude) his wife has always hated the hat.